Sony Ericsson and Nokia fight over uncapped music downloads

Sony Ericsson to launch Comes With Music rival

Sony Ericsson is poised to jump on Nokia’s recent Comes With Music announcement by launching a rival unlimited music download service.

According to sources unknown, quoted in a report by the Financial Times, SE’s believed to be in discussions with “all of the major [record] labels” over a music subscription service offering fans as many track downloads as they like, all for a monthly subscription fee.

However, launch of the service is thought to be held up by negotiations about how the service will be operated and how a subscription will cost.

SE’s already declined to comment, but the FT report claims the firm will initially launch its Comes With Music rival outside of Europe before September’s out. A European launch could follow before Christmas.

The Sony off-shoot already has an existing music and multimedia downloads service called PlayNow, although it’s not available in the UK. SE added 5m mostly DRM-free tracks to it in January and charges around €1 (£0.75/$1.25) per song.

PlayNow holds music from artists signed to a wealth of record labels, including Sony BMG, Warner Music Group and EMI. Nokia hasn’t unveiled how much it’ll charge CWM music fans each month yet.